Video Subproject

CNN iReport - Christians and the Media

(Oct 8, 1970)

For better or worse, we spend A LOT of time in front of our image-machines.  While I did not read this particular chapter until after making the iReport video, it is clear that this chapter on the Transversal is quite relevant to the issues raised in the video.  Ulmer writes that "the agenda-setting power of popular culture is based on its ability to transform science and history [and I would add religion, or the naively purported lack-thereof that constitute the mythology of our society" (95).  In contemporary society, Christian belief and ideology is at risk of being wholesale written out of the societal mythology.

One might see the approach of increasing Christian representation in Entertainment media as somewhat consistent with the strategies advocated by Ulmer.  In that our "identity experience" (99) is connected and influenced through a growing visual and electrate world, and that "one's own scene may be figured by the news[/entertainment media]" (95), it makes sense to explore that world of the Spectacle as a way of "using the visible to write the [increasingly] invisible" (111).  Breaking through the emerging barriers, though, may be difficult, in that the public sphere "sanctions certain images and not others" (100), and the image of the normal/sane Christian is an image that seems to be on the outs. 

Video ALSO posted on CNN's iReport:  http://www.ireport.com/docs/DOC-345054

(NOTE:  Video Clips obtained from Public YouTube channels of ABC and IGN Downloads)

Referenced News Articles:

Roland Martin: "Hollywood and God can co-exist" - CNN.com

"GLAAD Sad about Grey's" - TVGUIDE.com

Neon Lights, Full Moons, and Lucy

(October 30, 1964) 

Ulmer seems to have a rather distinct answer to that question.

Below is my video response (albeit spoken rather quickly) to the next section of the readings:

Links:

BBC Posts:  http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/talking_point/641394.stm

Monte Schulz Interview: http://www.newsarama.com/comics/091014-Schulz-Jordan-Fantagraphics.html

"I'm a Lucy" YouTube Page:  http://www.youtube.com/user/IMaLUCY

Software/FREEware Link:

CamStudio (Screen Capture video software): http://download.cnet.com/CamStudio/3000-13633_4-10067101.html?tag=mncol

A New Language

(Oct 11, 1962)

I do not have much experience speaking through the language of film/video.  My vocabulary is pretty limited, and my accent is even worse.  But, like with any new language, practice by immersion is the best way to learn, and thus my video response to the next portion of the readings:

"Hot Summer Lights"

(c. 1962)

We all have things to work out - both collectively and as individuals... things that perhaps lemonade stands alone can't solve... things that doctors alone can't solve.  It seems, from this section of reading in Ulmer, that Monuments, or more perhaps more precisely MEmorials, are intended to heal something, someone, someones. They help us find ourselves within our relationships to the collective (18) and work inventively to address particular issues of concern (13). Ulmer quotes Gloser as saying of Beuys Wound Works that it is an “attempt to heal the place” (27). Perhaps we should return at some point to questioning this notion of healing and wounds, but first let’s take a look at what might be another example (though probably not as direct or as insightful as those discussed in ch1) of monumentality.

Cedar Point is a roller coaster amusement park located in Sandusky, Ohio. During most evenings in the park, the Midway is filled with the “Hot Summer Lights” show. The show is a combination of video and animation displayed on a large screen, loud music of all genres, and choreographed pyrotechnics. Debuted in 2006 (http://www.cedarpoint.com/public/news/history/index.cfm), the show features elements that speak to the need that Americans have for unifying, even in our exceptionally diverse and heterogeneous society.

The show is set in the center of this massive roller coaster park. This is not exactly the site of “wounds” that Ulmer hints at being a profitable location for monuments (though the park is on a peninsula which is often rumored to be sinking – so perhaps there is something to be said about that, in Cedar Fair’s constant need to make structural improvements to safeguard their multi-million dollar rides’ longevity). The towering rides, some over 400 feet tall serving as an ominous backdrop to the displays on the screen. It is an impressive place of play: “the more a place is set apart for free play, the more it influences people’s behavior and the greater is its force of attraction” (Chtcheglov qtd. In Ulmer 29).

The images include many scenes from the park, including computer generated animations of riding a roller coaster, but there are two highlights to the show (at least as evidenced by the crowd reaction). The first is the BigTen section. In this section, the school fight song for each of the BigTen schools is played while footage of their football teams is shown. This elicits wild cheers from the massive crowds sitting on the pavement watching (the biggest cheers coming during the Ohio section and the biggest boos coming during the Michigan section). This is an example of that simultaneous need to recognize and build individuality and community that our society is made up of. In a period of national identity crisis, sports serve as a metaphor for individuals relating to themselves through their relationships with others and larger institutions (similar to the superego discussed by Ulmer through Freud/Deleuze/Guattari (18-21).

The next section of the show that generates a strong reaction from the crowd (the tourists) is the patriotic section. During my last visit to the park, I could see dad’s swaying with their sons and daughters on their shoulders and mom’s having their little ones salute or place their hands over their hearts as they watched images of tire swings and fields of grain to the tune of “Proud to be an American.” It struck me then that this was an important cultural ritual – and I now see it as a sort of monumentalizing, in that “it is not what tourists say but what they do that counts” (25).

So this may be an example of monumentalizing or memorializing. Is it tied to a specific problem or wound that needs healing? Maybe – our national/social identity crisis at this current state. If we move past this point (though Ulmer seems to indicate that we will inevitably de-nationalize in our conceptions – see page 29), does this cease to be a monument/memorial in the Ulmerian sense? Rushmore still seems to be, so I suppose this would as well (though admittedly I am still grappling with what it means to be monumental/memorial in the Ulmerian sense of the terms).

Images Subproject

Composition and Baseball

(Sept. 12, 1962)

There are many elements that make up any given visual text, and there's plenty of room for diverging opinions (disagreements, even) on composition choice and analysis.  KvL's work points to some tendencies, however, in the way that visuals are read and/or meaningfully created.

I shot/took/edited/created/etc.ed the following two images to fit the purposes of my slooowwly developing EM concept.  The plan is to memorialize/celebrate the work by Charles Schulz who died in 2000 (and others, like Bill Melendez who died this past year), focusing on how Peanuts is not a comic strip relegated solely to the confines of the strip framing, but rather contains elements that point to truths in our own lives - using characters that we can identify with to portray a high level of modality, even if not in the typical way we think of modality.  I'll primarily talk about the second image below in relation to the continued KvL reading.

(Photo 1)

(Photo 2)

Let's work through some of the KvL ideas...

1) Salience:  The most salient element (in Photo 2) is the fence.  It is the closest to element to the viewer, is sharply in focus (an important point given the shallow depth of field) and contains high contrast due to the highlights/shadows. 

There is a second element, however, that competes for salience once you see it - the Peanuts characters hollering from the dugout bench.  Patty and Linus (not Peppermint Patty, mind you... this is the Patty from the early days of the strip eventually to be phased out) become salient once seen because they are "out of place" in some way - i.e., they are comic strip characters in a photograph of the real world.  Their salience is aided by the vectors running towards them - the fence line and the bench line.  They are obscured (though partially framed) by the fence, though, which means their salience is challenged and may be interpreted differently by viewers.

The close-to-center placement of the subjects also helps make them "heavier" (202) and thus more salient.  This can be seen even more dramatically in Picture 1, where Charlie Brown and Lucy are clearly the most salient elements, with Schroeder being only slightly less because of his non-centeredness.

2)  Information Value: 

Given-New (181) --- There is little on the Right, making for little New meaning.  The most salient element (at least initially) is in the Right, but the image remains empty behind the fence.  The subjects (Patty and Linus) are Given (though only slightly).  The goal is to make them appear Given.  This is in order to challenge the initial reaction of "hey - they don't belong there!" (which is also why the picture is in black and white - to try to and meet them closer on their initial plane of modality).

There is also a leftward vector created by the direction the subjects and looking and hollering, inviting (Offering) the viewer to take a second look at the Given - perhaps a "did I miss something?" moment.

Ideal-Real (186) ---  There is not a very distinct horizon in Picture 2 (unlike Picture 1's "divine lights" from above generated by the stadium lighting).  Picture 2 is confined largely (save for the upper left corner) to the Real, boxed into the dugout.  This is important given that the characters may be hard conceptually for a viewer to ascribe to the Real of a naturalistic photograph (a point of potential Contestation --- KvL aplty point out such a possibility in reading images).

3)  Framing:  Patty and Linus are framed partially by the dugout, partially by the depth created by the fence.  This creates an "inside" and "outside" that potentially complicates our notions of Given and New, maybe even the Real and Ideal.  The fence is a convoluted frame, though, in that it is partially see-through, allowing for Patty's face to be framed within the fence, but Linus to be further obscured.  In Picture 1, by contrast, Lucy and Charlie Brown are framed simply between two light poles (potentially even framed by a triangle created by three of the poles).  The pitcher's mound may even serve as the bottom of that frame.

And finally...

With this in mind, it is important to note that these comic strip characters have been taken out of their "typical framing" of the strip (204).  This is to allow them to be situated in a new context - framed by naturalism (in our world, as opposed to theirs).